This is a re-post of my recent addition to the Undertone Blog. Thought it was worth posting here as well.

Jack Marshall’s recent piece in DigiDay “The Mobile Ad Network Bubble,” touches on exactly what we’ve been hearing from both agencies and publishers. At Undertone, we spend much of our time discussing major forces at play in the market with mobile media buyers and top publishers. Some of the consistent themes echoed throughout these conversations, include:

1) Scale is Trumping Quality. Mobile-specific networks have scaled their inventory at the expense of quality with too much long-tail content.

2) Everyone’s doing the Same Thing. Mobile-specific networks have failed to adequately differentiate their offerings.

3) It’s not getting Easier. Managing mobile buys is still a time consuming, fragmented process.

4) The Big Picture… Mobile-specific networks don’t benefit from understanding the media plan and how their buy should complement the overarching strategy across multiple screens.

Complaints from media buyers arise because reality is that most mobile networks sell the same thing and, in many cases, even buy and sell the same inventory from each other. As such, media buyers looking to achieve scale on quality content sites by working with multiple mobile-specific networks will encounter problems managing reach and frequency (as well as their time).

From the premium publishers’ perspective, VC-backed mobile networks are a double-edged sword. On one hand, they help drive revenue and prove valuable in early stages of the market. On the other hand, they devalue premium publishers’ inventory. Competitive pressures and lack of differentiation among the mobile networks have forced them to compete on price, creating an inevitable “race to the bottom.” Many networks are selling with premium publisher logos, yet largely delivering via non-premium inventory.

As such, premium publishers are starting to re-think their strategies to focus on direct sales with a goal to end their dependence on mobile networks. It’s a smart move. And, it’s good news for us at Undertone because we provide an attractive option. Similar to how we provide an attractive option for desktop web.

The real challenge for mobile-specific ad networks relates to the aforementioned “big picture.” The industry acknowledged awhile ago that integration is key to realizing mobile media’s full potential. Buyers certainly want a simple, coordinated way to plan and buy media across multiple screens. And while managing reach and frequency across all screens is one goal, the behavioral insight from each platform is where the exciting opportunity lies.

Perhaps consolidation may help, as mobile networks will undoubtedly be acquired by larger web networks. And, if they integrate well, they may succeed. In the meantime, there is an incredible opportunity for an integrated high-quality offering to emerge where it’s sorely needed.

After a concerted effort by FT to get its subscribers to switch from their native ipad/iphone apps to the paper’s HTML5 web app, they have now pulled those native subscription apps from the App Store. Bravo!

While this approach won’t work for all content owners, it clearly sets the stage for others to follow suit. Those publishers that own – and want to continue to own – direct subscriber relationships, can provision HTML5 web apps that deliver an excellent customer experience directly via their desktop and mobile websites. No percentage paid to Apple, more fluid development/upgrades, no review process and all the customer data a publisher typically enjoys.

I can’t be sure how many subs the FT has via the HTML5 web app. PaidContent and Mediapost both speculate in recent coverage, but I can’t glean a clear answer (please help me out if you can). The FT decision to pull the apps from the store certainly suggests they are happy with the numbers and how they are trending.

It will be interesting to see which publishers follow FT’s lead here. The NYTimes has a great Chrome web app and others are working away on HTML5 executions of one kind or another. Apps are not going away, but I predict HTML5 web apps will be a priority for many over the next twelve months.

Mobile ad spend stats…Are we there yet?

Lots of new mobile ad spend and planning-related research in the past few days… Most of it is good, but some of it still points to mobile as an up-and-comer yet to realize it’s potential. Digiday says “Mobile is a lot like Harry Potter: clearly brilliant, something of an orphan and unsure what it will be when it grows up — and whether it can harness its power.” That made me laugh.

Meanwhile, Mediapost cites research from J.P. Morgan that says U.S. mobile ad spend will hit $1.2 Billion In 2011. Most of the predictions for 2011 U.S. mobile ad spend are just below or just above a billion.

I think the points made in the Digiday article by Michael Zimbalist of the NYTimes are on target. He sees mobile as a channel built for cross media opportunities and points out that consumers are jumping from screen to screen, “…using mobile devices in conjunction with traditional media outlets like TV.” (Zimbalist doesn’t offer data to back this up, but it’s out there, we’ve all seen it and I think we can agree for the moment…If I must, I’ll dig up the data and post here if anyone isn’t yet convinced.) This should certainly be seen as an opportunity for integrated buys that include highly creative, intelligent, context-aware mobile ad spend that leverages the unique capabilities of mobile devices – Not just slapping banners on mobile sites/apps. I wrote on this subject last week in response to comments made by Eric Litman, CEO of rich media ad company, Medialets. Yes there are obstacles to scale in mobile rich media and overall mobile ad spend, but those obstacles are being overcome – or tracked around – by taking smarter approaches to building and serving rich media mobile creative and measurement.

Will integrated mobile ad Spend become the norm?

eMarketer published a chart of survey data from Chief Marketer that indicates it will.

From my perspective, brands are already moving things in the right direction as they demand highly engaging rich media ads on tablets. This is encouraging for mobile ad spend as the bar is being raised above that of crappy banners and the slavish devotion to CTR’s. Smart brand integration coupled with highly engaging rich media ad units should ensure mobile ad spend reaches maturity.

I’m sure I’ll be writing more on the subject of mobile ad spend, so stay tuned!

U.S. iPad growth is staggering after only one year.

My friend and mobile media veteran, Trevor Hamilton at Velti, shared some iPad stats with me from Apple Insider about web browsing on various smartphone and tablet platforms. Yes, I guess we ARE mobile geeks if we are sharing iPad market stats over breakfast.

When combined, iOS accounts for a whopping 60.7 percent of U.S. mobile browsing. That’s almost twice that of Android. Blackberry accounts for 6.9 % while Symbian, Windows Mobile and webOS combine for less than a half a percent.

The implications for publishers and advertisers is obvious. This is iPad and iPhone Safari web browser traffic, not applications. If you’re not optimizing content, advertising and existing infrastructure for these iPad, iPhone and other mobile devices, you are missing an immediate opportunity and ensuring you’ll have to play catch up as it continues to scale. Will it continue to grow?

How will iPad scale?

Apple Insider provides additional compelling stats: Apple has already sold more than 25 million iPads in just the first 14 months. They go on to quote analyst Gene Munster with Piper Jaffray, who put the numbers even more in perspective, determining that Apple is selling about 87,000 iPads per day.

And how does mobile browser usage compare to app usage? Here’s some data from Comscore that has mobile browsing in a slight lead.

Get busy, people! If you’re on the sidelines and ignoring iPad, iPhone and other mobile devices, you’re blowing it.

More good stuff about HTML5 from Xavier Facon writing on Read Write Web.

I had the good fortune to work with Xavier Facon while I was VP Sales at Crisp Wireless in the early days of mobile web. I’ve written quite a bit on HTML5 and the opportunity it creates for publishers. Xavier makes some good pointsabout HTML5 as a preferred medium for rich media advertising that scales across platforms, handsets, etc. Also some good points about adserving and metrics with HTML5.

Many of my clients on the publisher side are making moves toward HTML5 because it solves many of the fragmentation problems associated with silos, applications, and the inefficiencies of current routines for publishing across platforms. Not a client, but check out FT.com’s HTML5 web app.

It seems clear that this is a game changer – or should be – for many in the emerging platform value chain. Publishers are taking note and Xavier’s piece should help get some advertisers and ad tech providers moving toward HTML5 as well.